


Getting Out

by rakel



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Future Fic, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:50:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rakel/pseuds/rakel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thought he'd made it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting Out

It’s been dark for a while when Stiles pulls up at the parking lot below his apartment complex. It’s a mild night, just cold enough that he’s zipping up his hoodie as he grabs a plastic bag out of the passenger seat and locks his car. Winged insects flock around each grimy orange source of light: the lamp posts, the lights along the face of the building. There are no windows, no signs of life inside the concrete. He adjusts his grip on the bag and climbs the discoloured stairs two steps at a time, passing anonymous doors as he walks towards the one he knows to be his. Well, not exactly, Stiles lucked out when a guy in his class suddenly decided to travel abroad and needed someone to look after his place, but it doesn’t make much of a difference. He certainly takes better care of the place. Which says something, because the only reason his childhood room didn’t look like a bomb site was his dad actively instilling the fear of god in him. Despite this relaxed relationship with order, the neighbourhood that stretches out below him strikes him as battered and filthy, lifeless. Each set of stairs takes him a bit further above it.

By the time he reaches his floor, he’s using his free hand to pull himself up by the banister. Stopping to catch his breath, he looks up and frowns down the length of the walkway. The dinky lights above aren’t strong enough to properly illuminate the person leaning against the wall close to his door. Stiles starts forward, acting like he hasn’t seen anything while digging around his pocket for his keys. The figure slowly turns his head toward him, no surprise whatsoever evident in the movement, and Stiles’ brain jumps three steps ahead without his permission. He stops in the middle of a step, one shoulder lowered.

“Derek?”

“Stiles.” Flat tone, baritone range, no mistaking. Stiles keeps walking, his keys jangling when he succeeds in pulling them out of his pocket. Over it, he can hear the low purr of the swarming insects. Closer now, a leather jacket and crossed arms are visible. Derek has turned his head back, looking out over the neighbourhood.

Narrowing his eyes at the man, Stiles lets words roll around his mouth for a second. “What are you doing here?”

“Scott decided to join my pack.”

Stiles stops once more, eyebrows high. “ _What?_ ”

“Not,” the faintest pause, a microscopic sigh, ”as my beta.”

Stiles cocks his head and runs his tongue along the inside of his cheek before he continues past Derek and turns up to his door, eyes on his own hands. Derek continues, unprompted - he’s here to deliver information, not exchange. “Scott intended to tell you in person. He couldn’t, so I went instead.” The lock opens with a click, and Stiles swings the door open. Then he stands there in the entryway, stock-still. He can’t bring himself to look at Derek. He can’t bring himself to walk inside and slam the door. He doesn't even consider inviting him in.

“Why are you telling me now?”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“...Phone call? Email? Skype? Mail?”

“It’s been two days. We haven’t really had time.”

“Since _what_ , exactly?” he bites out.

“A family of hunters moved into Beacon Hills. According to the Argents it’s a coincidence, and they haven’t tried to contact them, but we decided to make a pact to fortify our defences.”

Another family of hunters - Stiles always figured they were a bit like werewolf packs themselves. It was a matter of time, really. It’s something else that makes a bell go off in his head: “ _Pact?_ ”

He faintly notices the silence in his mind, the kind he used to achieve with Adderall and mortal danger. If he keeps this up, he won’t have the mental energy to brush his teeth properly before going to bed.

If Derek hadn’t expected Stiles’ reaction, he makes no such indication. “As I said, not my beta.”

“We have pretty definitive proof there can be more than one alpha in a pack.”

The fuckers had come for Jackson and completely failed to give a shit when he wasn’t a Kanima anymore by the time they decided to make Beacon Hills hell on earth.

“It’s a human contract.”

“ _Ah._ Hence the word _pact_ and not _pack_. Easy to confuse them if you’re not careful.”

Derek’s carefully blank face crumbles into irritation as he levels a glare at him, and Stiles is not exactly smiling either. He wants to ask him whose brilliant idea it was to send Derek instead of simply making a lowly phone call, why they even bother to tell him. He wouldn’t be surprised if Scott decided (in one of his - increasingly rare - lapses of judgement) he was scared to hear his opinion on the matter. It’s not positive, that’s for sure. The Hale pack is not to be trusted.

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Which one?”

“ _Why you’re here._ You don’t need me to vouch for you, so why am I getting the VIP treatment?”

“You’re the only human in either of our packs who’s not a hunter.”

Stiles frowns. What does that matter? “What about Lydia?”

Derek blinks, mirroring his confused scowl. “What about her?”

It made sense that Jackson would want to get away from the crimes he (technically hadn’t) committed, but not even he had expected his parents to move because of some job situation no more than a month after the Kanima disappeared from him. And Lydia - Lydia just kept walking the school corridors, head held high and high heels clicking. Stiles may have decided to go to college somewhere else than Beacon Hills around that time. It’s likely Lydia made the same decision years earlier.

The alphas had laughed when they had tried to make sure they weren’t going to follow Jackson.

Stiles breathes out noisily, his hand flexing on the door handle. “Why a human?”

“Diplomacy. You’re not threatening, you’re the Sheriff’s kid, you’re in a pack,” he tapers off and ends with a shrug. It’s obviously not Stiles’ talent and personality that led Derek to this.

“Allison?”

He gets a grumble in answer. “She can’t defend us.”

“She’d be breaking the Code,” Stiles fills in, nodding once.

Allison unofficially took over her father’s business a while back. She hadn’t seemed happy the last time Stiles saw her, but content, at least. Scott and she never got back together, but developed a friendship that rivaled his and Stiles’. (He was quite frankly too excited about the the symmetry to care. The perfect RPG party or not, hello? Isaac had made less sense to Stiles, though.)

And thanks to the pact Allison would now be breaking the Code if she ever took Scott’s side, which would most likely cost her every last shred of credibility, ever. What was Scott _thinking?_

He awkwardly hangs the bag from his wrist to run his hand down his face, sighing. He wants to sleep. He wants to skype Scott just to give him the silent treatment. He needs to-, shit, he hasn’t seen Derek, anyone but his dad, from Beacon Hills in months. He can feel his brain failing to keep up.

“I can’t.” He should be questioning this more. He should interrogate Derek about the hunters. He should call Allison. “I’m not saying-, I can’t do that.” He should at least take down their names, read up on them before he goes to bed. He should-

He should make sure his dad is safe. And fuck Derek Hale for knowing that.

“Not from here. I’ll-, I’ll drive down over the weekend.”

Derek just straightens up and walks away, like he got what he came for.

He thought he had made it out.

**Author's Note:**

> This was initially intended to be part of a longer story, but I got stuck and decided I might as well let people read it. I hope to continue it. Unbeta'd. Critisism, random ideas and plot bunnies are very welcome!


End file.
